Will Genia gets his wish with Quade Cooper to slot into Rebels’ ‘biggest missing piece’
QUADE Cooper’s curious career limbo is almost over with final details being thrashed out for a move to the Melbourne Rebels to reunite with Will Genia in Super Rugby next season.
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QUADE Cooper’s curious career limbo is almost over with final details being thrashed out for a move to the Melbourne Rebels to reunite with Will Genia in Super Rugby next season.
It will be an exciting win on all fronts with the Rebels roping a top playmaker, the Queensland Reds clearing most of his $650,000-a-year contract from their books and Cooper rebooting his career at the top level.
In a significant double-whammy, former Wallabies prop James Slipper will have a move from the Reds to the ACT Brumbies sorted out as early as the weekend.
Chatter about the resurrection of the 70-Test Cooper at the Rebels is now too widespread not to be true with Wallabies centre Reece Hodge joining Will Genia and Marika Koroibete with urging for the deal to be done.
“It’d be awesome for it come to fruition,” centre Hodge said in Port Elizabeth where he is preparing for Saturday’s Test against South Africa.
“I think he’s working pretty hard on it at the moment with his manager and Rugby Australia but I’m not sure exactly where it’s at.”
Cooper’s club season with Souths in Brisbane, after he was unwanted by Reds coach Brad Thorn, gets too little credit as a reflection of his sheer joy for rugby at any level.
He immersed himself in family, loved playing at the same club as younger brothers Reuben and Moses, ran on the kicking tee when he was injured, shouted teammates at a Gold Coast training camp and sparked the Magpies to the finals.
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There seemed a stubborn side to it was well, whether from Cooper or his manager Khoder Nasser, to make the Reds pay, literally, for sidelining him because feelers from the Brumbies and Rebels for the recent season were not advanced.
The Rebels will be getting a cut-price Cooper because the Reds will still be paying a part of the $650,000 they share with Rugby Australia as the final year of the deal next season.
Now 30, Cooper had to find a Super Rugby club to keep his skills sharp, at the pace and physicality of the elite level, or he would have become the ageing Test batsmen with slower footwork who just doesn’t react to the swinging ball like he once did.
The move to the Rebels is something Genia has advocated for seven months because he calls the search for the right five-eighth “our biggest missing piece.”
Hodge is delighted that he could soon be playing outside the duo that won the Reds the 2011 Super Rugby title and boast more than 160 Test caps of experience.
“Like Willy, I’d love to have him at the Rebels and be playing outside,” Hodge said.
Hodge said the big advantage of Cooper going to the Rebels wasn’t as a solo matchwinner but what he could add to the whole fabric of the team.
“I’ve seen what he can do and, over the past three or four years that I’ve known him, he’s definitely grown in terms of maturity and ability to a have a say in how he wants teams to play with the attacking shape,” Hodge said.
“Quade has obviously seen a lot of scenarios over his career, made his mistakes and learnt from them on and off the field.
“Being able to use that experience in our squad is not something where you pinpoint one game here or there for the benefit.
“It’s the help it would be for the collective to have someone like that over a whole season to refine your game.
“I played golf with Quade the other day (at Gainsborough Greens when the Wallabies were training on the Gold Coast) and the chat was more about how bad he was putting so we’ll see what happens.”
Slipper’s Queensland Country meets Cooper’s Brisbane City on Sunday at Wests’ Sylvan Rd ground at 3pm in what should be a standout National Rugby Championship clash.
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Originally published as Will Genia gets his wish with Quade Cooper to slot into Rebels’ ‘biggest missing piece’